Why HP 42S for Electrical Engineering?

[rprosperi]

(05-31-2017 11:51 PM)lemontea Wrote:  I've read that the "best" calculator for Electrical Engineering is the 42S.

Why is this? Or at least, why do those people hold that opinion?

Don't some of the other ones have EE equations or can be programmed properly?

It's likely that what was stated was the 42S is the best RPN Calculator from HP for EE work. Relatively few HP RPN machines have Complex number support built-in, I think only the 32S, 32SII, 33S (but who cares), 35S and 42S. Of these, the 42S is definitely the most capable machine, largest memory, larger addressable screen, etc.

The RPL machines (48/49/50 series) are far more capable, but they're RPL, which differs greatly from RPN. A comparison is really more of a religious discussion than a technical one, however, as you have some 48 machines, I guess you know that.

Also the WP-34S (which although based on HP h/w cannot be considered an HP machine) has superior precision, more integrated complex support and a far broader set of math functions, so it's probably better for EE work as well (not sure, I'm an ME), however the shoddy keyboard and limited LCD of the underlying 20b/30b hardware makes it a very frustrating machine to use at all, at least for me.